Programmable Design of Soft Actuators and Robots

Abstract

Soft pneumatic actuators are widely used for achieving sophisticated motions. However, to achieve extending, bending, bending-twisting and winding in a class of actuator is challenging. Here, we propose a programmable design to enable soft actuators to execute such complex motions. These motions are mainly owing to adjusting structure parameters, the position and angle of the elastic layer and the strain limiting layer. In addition, various deformation modes of actuators are demonstrated by our prototypes. By tuning the structure parameters, the deformation of actuators is explored and becomes more sophisticated and dexterous. Moreover, winding actuator shows a more stable grasping performance, which can grasp objects of different shapes and weights. We further demonstrate that by combining different forms of soft actuators, crawling soft robots with different functions can be developed. This programmable design method guides the fabrication of actuators and robots, making them promising candidates for more complex motions and new and innovative applications.